In the aerospace industry, there is an extensive use of fasteners which are torqued to high levels using conventional slots or the special torquing arrangement of Phillips, Reed and Prince, Tri-Wing or other recessed shapes, all of which tend to fail when the torquing tool is not perfectly centered or oriented with respect to the head thereof. The common failure mode is for the torquing tool to get out of axial alignment with the fastener head and cam out of the recess in the head during the application of torque. This deforms the torque application recess in the head and makes it unusable thereafter. The fasteners involved in the aerospace industry are numerous and commonly are manufactured from expensive exotic materials such as titanium. For example, a DC-10 requires about 10,000 Tri-Wing titanium flush or pan head fasteners some of which cost the airlines over $50 each. Therefore, a fairly common failure mode such as is experienced with recessed torquing systems presents a sizeable manufacturing and maintenance expense.
In some instances, the location of a fastener allows the use of exterior tooling which positively aligns the torquing tool with the fastener and through the use of clamping devices assures that the drive tool cannot cam out of the torquing recess. Unfortunately, the different locations on an aircraft require a myriad of tools all special for given locations, and in some cases the location makes such tools impossible to use. Therefore there has been a need for a positive, recessed, fastener torquing system, whose tooling can be used universally and which greatly reduces the cost of installing and removing the fasteners.